With his red scarf covering his mouth, Jason approached three black guys sitting on the steps outside an apartment complex. “I’m looking for a Dominican guy, bald.”

“You’re talking about Harry Berto, Daddy-O.” The man shook his head, causing his straightened black hair to glisten in the light. “You don’t want to mess with that cat, trust me.”

“Where’s he at?” Jason persisted. He realized the name they pronounced like “hairy bear toe” was actually “Er ē ber tō.”

“He’s at the Reen Cone, but white people stay away from there,” one of the other men explained, waving in the direction of the corner at the other side of the street.

“Thanks,” Jason said, and he grew fiercely determined. He clenched his jaw and marched down the sidewalk, then diagonally across the intersection, causing taxis and cars to brake or swerve to avoid hitting him. He stormed down the pavement and up the sidewalk, straight to a Dominican club, the Rincón, or “corner” in English. There was a bouncer at the door in a suit and a trench coat, looking more fat than intimidating. Jason had his sap out, held discreetly at his side.

The rotund doorman started to raise a hand in protest. “¿Adónde intentas ir?” or in English, “Where do you think you’re going?”

From a low crouch, Jason brought the sap straight up, twisting it so that the flat side with the bulb of lead struck the man right in the testicles. The fat man let out an “oof!” followed by a high-pitched whine as he clutched his groin and rolled on the sidewalk.

Jason tugged at the red scarf to make certain it concealed his face, and barged through the door. Quickly scanning the room, he spied a large bald man playing dominoes at a table with several other men. “Heriberto!” Jason yelled, and charged straight at the table.

A mulatto man with his back to Jason started to get up from his chair, but Jason kicked the backrest of the man’s chair, knocking him into the table. The man’s chest struck the table and sent dominoes scattering, some of which cascaded onto the floor. The table clipped the huge bald man as he stood up, but Jason was already on him, striking with the flat, depleted uranium end of the sap against the man’s elbow, causing him to shout in pain. The next strike hit with the thin edge, chopping down into the man’s thigh as deep as the bone, and he groaned. The third shot with the sap went straight across, striking the man’s kneecap with the heavy payload, then a fourth strike landed with a backhand blow to the kneecap, which caused him to scream when his knee buckled.

The big man used his right hand to catch himself, and push himself upright when the pain became too great to put any weight on his shattered kneecap. Jason struck with the flat of the sap on the bald man’s tabled hand, breaking several bones. Once the bald guy couldn’t hold himself up with his hand, or rest weight on his right leg, the big man dropped to the table, striking it with his right shoulder.

Jason yelled loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the bar. “Todos los vagos, todos los borrachos, me pertenecen a mí. ¡No se metan, nunca!” In essence, he told them that all of the bums, or the drunks were his, and that nobody should mess with them, ever.

In a parting gesture, Jason struck the tall bald man across the mouth with the flat of the sap, knocking out several teeth. One of the teeth flew through the air and skidded over the concrete floor when it landed, while another tooth was dislodged by Heriberto’s tongue and spat out onto the table. Blood streamed from the bald man’s busted mouth. Jason knew it wasn’t enough to beat a man, but that you had to scare him, destroy his will to fight, which was exactly what Jason was doing.

One of the men from the dominoes table, a thin brown man in a white suit, shot up to his feet while reaching inside his jacket. Whether the man had a knife, a gun, or was bluffing, Jason couldn’t be certain, but he instantly recognized the threat. The vulnerability of the attacker reaching across his chest into his coat was that the man was totally defenseless, at least as long as the intended victim didn’t get scared and try to retreat, but closed quickly. The attacker’s right arm was folded across his body and practically tucked under his left armpit. Jason whipped the sap backhanded, striking the man across the right temple with the flat, dense uranium end. It was a potentially fatal strike, but Jason couldn’t take any chances on the guy drawing a gun.

Jason swung the sap back for a follow-up forehand strike, but missed, because the man was already falling to the floor, out cold, and unable to catch himself, so that his head hit the floor with a sound like a cantaloupe rolling off the table and striking the cement. Jason reached inside the unconscious man’s breast pocket, and removed a .32 Colt automatic pistol.

The bald man sank back onto one of the chairs and drew a pocket handkerchief to cover his bleeding mouth, while the other men edged away from Jason.

Jason backed out of the bar and headed down the street. Rather than return to the main street, he strode parallel to it, and ditched the red scarf, which would identify him if he got picked up by the police. Jason walked as fast as he could without drawing attention to himself, and then caught the subway to the rescue mission. When he climbed the stairs and came out into the lobby of the rescue mission, the men all looked at him differently from where they sat at the dining room tables.

Harvey approached and asked him breathlessly. “Did you hear that, Brother Jason? They say some big Dominican thug got taken apart, and a bunch of other guys, too.”

“Oh, really?” Jason patted the man on the shoulder. “I guess the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“I don’t think ‘mysterious ways’ includes knocking out a man’s teeth,” Pastor Roy chimed in. “Some marauder just went wild in a Dominican club.”

“I know what you mean, Pastor Roy.” Jason shook his head sadly. Inwardly, he was surprised at how quickly such a detailed account of Jason’s assault had spread. “Violence is never the answer.”

Jason raised his voice so that he could be heard by the men, who were all looking at him with a strange new respect. “The Bible says that a sparrow doesn’t fall without God knowing about it, and caring. With the Lord’s help, you’re all going to be taken care of. You’ll get your checkups and your medicine, and nobody is going to dare touch any of you. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.’”

“The Lord helps those that help themselves,” Francis observed.

“True,” Jason said, “and we’re all helping each other.”

* * *

“I’d like to close my credit card account,” Jason announced.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. The representative never received this kind of request. People always begged for a card, pleaded to have their credit limit raised, made up excuses for why they were late and behind on their payments, but nobody ever willingly closed his or her account. Frankly, the agent didn’t know what to do, but instructions for how to close an account were in the procedures manual on her computer desktop.

“You realize, Mr. Whitlock, that it costs you nothing to keep the card,” the representative told him in a soothing, professional voice. “As long as your purchases are paid on time, there are no interest charges, either.”

“Thanks, but I’d like to close the account. I waited on the line quite a while after negotiating your frustrating phone tree.” Jason knew the rat bastards wanted him to keep the credit card, because all it took was the day he was late, or forgot about the payment, or thought he had 30 days in a month, when their billing cycle was shortened to 28 days…and bam! There was your late fee and a jacked-up interest rate. There were guys in the credit card companies who made Pol Pot or Joseph Mengele look like pikers, guys who spent all day devising ways to hook and screw over customers, such as the devious trick that high-interest rate purchases are never paid off until after the lower rate purchases are paid off, so there was more time in which you were being screwed by the higher rate.

“Just a moment, Mr. Whitlock,” the voice on the other end told him. “I just need to make certain you don’t have any charges outstanding, and are paid in full.”

Jason knew that the bastards also had the hope that Jason would get laid off, or get injured and unable to work, or meet a crisis like the car being totaled and insurance paying less than what he owed on the loan, or any of a thousand other crises that could strike, and make a desperate person without any savings or any cash reserve turn to credit card debt to try to get him through his hardship. While a struggling person racked up debt, and was late or made incomplete payments as he fought to get his finances back in order, he was hit with late fees and higher interest rates, digging a very deep hole that might take years to crawl out of. And all the while the credit card sons of bitches would be making money hand over fist.

“You know, Mr. Whitlock, as a long-time customer, and for having paid off all of your debts, we’re prepared to offer you a lower interest rate.”

Jason recognized this gambit as the drug dealer offering him discounted heroin. They didn’t want him to pay off his purchases—they wanted him to be in debt, because that was how they made money. And if all his purchases were interest-free, then why offer him a lower rate?

“Thanks, but I’d like to close the account now,” Jason said firmly. He waited patiently while the woman on the other end did something, or pretended to, for all he knew.

“Well, Mr. Whitlock, your card has been invalidated and your account closed. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“No, that will be all, thank you.” Jason closed the call and breathed a sigh of relief. It had taken him three months, and he’d funneled every extra dollar he could find into his credit card account to pay it off early, but now he was free. With his grandfather’s help and prompting, Jason had drastically cut down his spending, canceling his cable TV and gym membership, magazine subscriptions (which was tough, because Jason loved reading), started buying fresh food and not going out to eat, especially at his favorite Thai restaurant, and stopping all the myriad constant purchases he made, like new fishing lures, magazines off the rack, junk food, clothes he didn’t need, new magic tricks, books, and videos, and so on. If Jason hadn’t trimmed his lifestyle back drastically, he wouldn’t have had the extra cash to pay off the credit card debt, which was less than two thousand dollars, but it would have taken him years. Jason realized that with his former no-reserve lifestyle, it would have been just a matter of time before some unforeseen emergency would have forced him to rack up more debt.

Jason punched his watch stem and studied his real wealth display.

There were just two items in the debt column—the credit card debt was gone, and he was surprised at how happy that made him feel. It was as if he’d lived in a straightjacket for several years, and had finally been able to take it off.

Jason was going to celebrate with a beer, just as soon as he finished his twenty-five minutes of continuous rope jumping. Then he was going to walk around the block, just enjoying the fresh air, which now seemed freer to him.